Would that FPP have been kosher?

July 12, 2005 6:12 PM

Yesterday Scotty McClellen was the whipping boy in one of the funniest press conferences I've ever seen. The left-leaning political blog Crooks and Liars hosted a video of the best 6 minutes.

I was considering posting it, since I thought it was defintately the best thing I had seen on the web yesterday, but I didn't want to hear all the nannies scream "newsfilter" all day.

So what's the deal? Would that FPP have been kosher? And if not, what would have been the best way to share the link with the community who, if they hadn't seen it, would have probably also loved it?
posted by tsarfan to Etiquette/Policy at 6:12 PM (48 comments total)

whoops.

my bad i hadnt seen that this had been deleted.


as kurdt kobain said, nevermind
posted by tsarfan at 6:14 PM on July 12, 2005

Yeah. Some of us (self included) were pretty disappointed to see the post disappear, even though it was pretty much RoveFilter, because it had some truly great commentary in it.

Now the MeFi Gods have decided to allow us one good Rove item for recent news, but apparently their powers don't extend to resurrection. ;)
posted by mystyk at 6:34 PM on July 12, 2005

Not to mention that, by posting this thread, you ended up posting the damn link anyway. Why do people keep asking "is [insert link] OK to post on MeFi? You all think that the people who read MeTa are a different bunch to the ones who read MeFi? You think that this is a censorship panel? WTF?

I am genuinely curious, despite the snark.
posted by dg at 6:36 PM on July 12, 2005

Why do people keep asking "is [insert link] OK to post on MeFi?

simple. because other people keep deleting things.
posted by quonsar at 6:54 PM on July 12, 2005

That was a very funny clip. I can't believe the brass frickin balls, and admittedly skills, of the man to dodge and lie and avoid all those questions. What a slimeball.

As to your question. I would say yes, but my member number is too big for me to think I have the right to comment on such things.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:51 PM on July 12, 2005

Now the MeFi Gods have decided to allow us one good Rove item for recent news, but apparently their powers don't extend to resurrection.

There are still good RoveFilter FPP thread to be made. If someone put together a nuanced post with original links that examined some of the issues I am sure it would stand without complaint (well, ok, I am sure it would stand).
posted by mlis at 7:53 PM on July 12, 2005

dg,

i posted this thread out of real curiosity. isnt this the place to ask questions about etiquette?

posting the link wasnt a sneaky way to get people to talk about the press conference, but to let The Powers That Be know what the heck i was talking about.

and yes, i do think that this is a censorship panel, in a way. i have seen lots of threads in MeTa where people ask "should this person be banned" or "is this kosher".

and btw, when i found that a MeFi post similiar to the one that i was going to post had been deleted, i said "nevermind" to signify that it was cool with me if this thread got deleted too.

cool?
posted by tsarfan at 7:57 PM on July 12, 2005

It's for the best, really. I would have probably flagged it anyway and then been gently and insouciantly ignored for being oversensitive.
posted by tweak at 8:08 PM on July 12, 2005

Heh. Nope, no oversensitivity there.
posted by soyjoy at 8:29 PM on July 12, 2005

tsarfan, while you may have been genuinely curious about the ettiquette of posting the link, others have come before you who seem to use MeTa as a wayt of posting something they know is not acceptable, but do it in the guise of asking if it is suitable. On the other hand, there have been some who post a thread here describing the link and asking the same question.

But, yeah, cool.
posted by dg at 8:37 PM on July 12, 2005

because other people keep deleting things.

Yeah, because I've never, ever seen a thread filled to the brim with comments that have nothing to do with the link, but merely question the validity of posting. Nope. Never happened. Not. A. Single. Time. Ever.


I was talking to Jessamyn earlier today, asking her if we could lighten up on the Rove/Plame stuff because I think some significantly different news is coming out now. It was ridiculous that ten people wanted to post about rumors a week ago, but one well researched post explaining all the ins and outs would be fine.

On the other hand, I don't want to see the Rove Post Du Jour, as a few members might want to turn this into a Kos/Atrios clone where the same issue is hammered into a pointless pulp.

So yeah, some significant news about Rove would be fine in my opinion, and I think the video and transcripts of the press conference and commentary on it from all sides would make a fine post.

My hope is that we stick to that barometer over what is post worthy -- is it really a significant development, or just another rehash of the same topic?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:42 PM on July 12, 2005

fwiw, i posted the mclellan conference firstly because i thought it was goddamn hilarious, and only secondarily because it was about rove, although that certainly didn't hurt.

"when did they ask you not to talk about this?"

"in that time period."

"the president talked about it nine months after that. did someone not fill him in on the plan?"

i mean, come on, that's gold.

i think that the content of the thread more than anything else was what made me think that it would have been nice if it had been left (maybe with a warning in that thread itself for those not trolling MeTa). we did spend most of it laughing at scotty, or at least that was my impression.
posted by spiderwire at 9:44 PM on July 12, 2005

It actually reminds me of the Jon Stewart on Crossfire that i posted a while ago. That stayed--why couldn't this?
posted by amberglow at 9:53 PM on July 12, 2005

Is there a way to see a longer excerpt? That was hiliarious!
posted by dobbs at 10:07 PM on July 12, 2005

This is pretty goddamn funny--thanks for posting it (again), regardless...
posted by hototogisu at 10:08 PM on July 12, 2005

because other people keep deleting things.

Because other people keep flagging them.

Maybe they just saw the "all Rove all the time" part of the post, or maybe they saw the "At the risk of pushing too much on the latest shenanigans over at the White House" part, or maybe it was the frog-themed tags and title, or it might have been the fact that the info in this post was already in comments in the Rove thread still on the front page at the time, or possibly just the fact that it was spiderwire's second Rove-related post in two days that came from TPM.

It's an interesting topic with a lot of good meaty information out there. However even UpdateFilter posts could have more than one link to a blog reprinting of a White House transcript. I'd love to see someone do a really good post about the briefing & related fallout.
posted by jessamyn at 10:15 PM on July 12, 2005

The fascination of this Rove fiasco by some members makes me think of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, for some reason.
posted by crunchland at 10:40 PM on July 12, 2005

Blood in the political water smells like metafilter.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:11 PM on July 12, 2005

Maybe they just saw the "all Rove all the time" part of the post, or maybe they saw the "At the risk of pushing too much on the latest shenanigans over at the White House" part, or maybe it was the frog-themed tags and title, or it might have been the fact that the info in this post was already in comments in the Rove thread still on the front page at the time, or possibly just the fact that it was spiderwire's second Rove-related post in two days that came from TPM.

...or maybe they ignored the qualifier that was in the post -- comedy over political drama -- which i've been reiterating ever since then. i put the hedges in my post to indicate that i was aware of the previous posts but thought that the conference was relevant anyway, but you can spin it however you like. (also, fwiw, there were two links, to different press conferences. i would have posted the video as well, but as was established in the thread, it was broken. was there relevant material i missed?)

regardless, it sounds like you're miffed about this one, jess, which i really don't understand.

the "original thread" had 2 comments before the posting of the press conference fpp, and 4 by the time the press conference fpp was deleted. the press conference thread, by contrast, had over 70 comments while it was up, mostly topical. god, two people on this thread have commented that they were glad to have seen the video, thought it was informative, etc. that by itself speaks volumes.

people may have flagged the thread, but it's still up to an admin to make an informed decision about whether or not the thread is useful before deleting it. in this case, a good conversation got shut down, and then the deletion comment got changed to a really snarky commentary after we started discussing it on MeTa.

why all the animosity about this? like i said earlier, i understand the decision despite disagreeing strongly with it, but i don't think that there's any reason to get defensive or to get on my case about it. after all, putting the rove thread in the sidebar does seem to me a tacit acknowledgment (repeated by jess and matt in this very thread) that it was worth a topic worthy of continued discussion.

look, if you think that i'm a moron or that i posted in bad faith, you're welcome to let me know, but i don't think that it's worth getting passive-aggressive about it on MeTa -- that applies to the dios commentary in the other thread as well. i've been here for a pretty long time, and even if no one's going to take what i say at face value, they could at least be civil enough to ask me first.
posted by spiderwire at 11:14 PM on July 12, 2005

"what would have been the best way to share the link with the community who, if they hadn't seen it, would have probably also loved it?"

In general, I'd say use common sense, post the link, and ignore the snarks if any are posted. The site is richer for your contributions, even if not everyone appreciates them.
posted by knave at 11:20 PM on July 12, 2005

Is there a way to see a longer excerpt?

Cspan.org has the whole thing. Today's too. Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to link. I read the transcript but it's NOTHING compared to watching it.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:23 PM on July 12, 2005

I understand trying to keep the Rove posts somewhat corralled, but I must say that I did see spiderwire's post before it was deleted, and was very glad I did, because I would have missed the video otherwise.

To me, it really was a different slant; I was just amazed to see White House reporters putting anybody in the administration on the spot about anything, and I'm particularly interested in the media-side aspect of things at this point in history. As far as I was concerned, there was no particular motivation for me to go back to the original Rove post, as I assumed it was just going to be discussion about the leak admission.

(However, I will say, "All Rove, all the time" was a really bad tactical mistake in terms of wording the post, and I'm sure it triggered quite a flurry of tags for deletion).
posted by taz at 12:51 AM on July 13, 2005

dg : "You all think that the people who read MeTa are a different bunch to the ones who read MeFi? You think that this is a censorship panel?"

I think the idea is the other way around: The blue is the public face of Mefi, the grey is the just-as-public-but-less-viewed (the "public back of the head" to the "public face") part of Mefi (though if we keep having entertaining flameouts it may take over from the blue). As such, most grey readers are blue readers, but not most blue readers are grey readers. Or something along those lines (I'm guessing at other peoples' motivations, so I make no claim to being spot-on, just in the neighbourhood)
posted by Bugbread at 3:01 AM on July 13, 2005

because other people keep deleting things.

Because other people keep flagging them.

So enough flags and a post gets deleted? Isn't that the kind of rating system Matt never ever have wanted? When did this change?
posted by mr.marx at 3:18 AM on July 13, 2005

mr.marx : "So enough flags and a post gets deleted? Isn't that the kind of rating system Matt never ever have wanted? When did this change?"

It didn't. I think the exchange should probably be parsed, "It was on the fence, and enough people flagged it that I decided to delete it. If it weren't on the fence, no amount of flags would prompt me to delete it, and if it were outright flatout inandout horrible, it would be deleted, even if thoroughly unflagged". Probably.
posted by Bugbread at 4:14 AM on July 13, 2005

bugbread writes "thoroughly unflagged"

Heh..."mine was the most unflagged post of the month I tellya"
"was not! Mine was more unflagged than yours!"
posted by peacay at 5:11 AM on July 13, 2005

spiderware: after all, putting the rove thread in the sidebar does seem to me a tacit acknowledgment (repeated by jess and matt in this very thread) that it was worth a topic worthy of continued discussion.

I think putting a topic in the sidebar is often an acknowledgment that people are going to post about it even though it probably isn't worth continued discussion...
posted by Chuckles at 5:39 AM on July 13, 2005

"All Rove, all the time" was a really bad tactical mistake

Yup. It never ceases to amaze me that people 1) think it's cute to put some over-the-top/inflammatory/sarcastic remark in their post and then 2) get all hurt and resentful when people respond to it. In this case, I'll bet if that one (totally unnecessary) sentence hadn't been there, the post would still be on the front page. Good post, lousy framing.
posted by languagehat at 7:05 AM on July 13, 2005

why all the animosity about this? like i said earlier, i understand the decision despite disagreeing strongly with it, but i don't think that there's any reason to get defensive or to get on my case about it.

You're projecting. I don't see any animosity or "getting on your case" in jessamyn's response. The site moderators were questioned about their decisions, and jessamyn listed her reasons. You disagree. We get it. Move on.
posted by pardonyou? at 7:34 AM on July 13, 2005

To bring this back to the issue of "is this OK to post?" MeTa posts (because I think it bears discussing, and it's a perfect analogy to Rove's "leak")-

tsarfan- When "is this kosher?" posts come up in MeTa, they're generally about a post/comment that already exists. The "censorship panel" you refer to for THIS post (and all other "should I do this or not?" posts) is in the Blue- if people are bothered, they'll flag it. If Matt/Jess feel it necessary, they'll take action. That's the mechanism that is set up.

If no one questions user X acting like a dickhead in the Blue here, he's still acting like a dickhead over there. If you don't (grant me this...) "leak the post" here, there's no post. This is not the place to float a potential post.
posted by mkultra at 8:29 AM on July 13, 2005

The blue is the public face of Mefi, the grey is the just-as-public-but-less-viewed (the "public back of the head" to the "public face") part of Mefi

Hmmmm. Then what body part, exactly, is AskMe?

And yeah, once again we have to take it on faith that this was not a back-door post, despite it looking like exactly that. Since it's impossible for us to assess motivation, the simple solution is: Don't link it here if you're not sure whether to link it there.
posted by soyjoy at 8:58 AM on July 13, 2005

Hmmmm. Then what body part, exactly, is AskMe?

A festering green pustule so horrifying that you and your doctor have agreed never to discuss it ever again.
posted by Rothko at 9:43 AM on July 13, 2005

Good post, lousy framing.

totally agreed. see my previous post for the ill-considered logic of why it was there :)

(keep in mind, 2nd fpp)

I don't see any animosity or "getting on your case"

i thought the "TPM" part of the post was a little passive-aggressive and felt the need to explain my motives. i was also referring to dios' somewhat more inappropriate reaction which was discussed here.
posted by spiderwire at 10:05 AM on July 13, 2005

tsarfan- matt's response to this was pretty lucid and on-point, and it may have gotten buried. this is really all i needed as far as clarification:

"My hope is that we stick to that barometer over what is post worthy -- is it really a significant development, or just another rehash of the same topic?"
posted by spiderwire at 10:08 AM on July 13, 2005

Thanks for putting the Rove post back into the sidebar, hopefully it'll help keep the main page clear of RoveFilter.

The video is indeed well worth viewing if only because this may be the start of the a public flameout by McClellan.

And I like how the GOP is throwing Scotty to the wolves and trying to protect Rove still. Thanks! We'll take the pawn AND the (c)rook, thankyouverymuch!
posted by fenriq at 10:21 AM on July 13, 2005

fenriq, does every scotty comment have to have "flaming" or some suchlike in it? i mean really.

/dios
posted by spiderwire at 10:40 AM on July 13, 2005

i was also referring to dios' somewhat more inappropriate reaction which was discussed here.
posted by spiderwire at 10:05 AM PST on July 13

Seriously man, are you 3 years old? Your crappy redundant post gets deleted and you whine about for three days.

I made a rather innocuous and unoffensive comment about it and this like the fourth time you have brought it up as if it was the greatest offense you ever recieved in your lifetime. Give it up!

Your post was deleted as it should have been. I had nothing to do with that. Quit being so melodramatic!

Quit whining about your deleted post already!!!
posted by dios at 11:03 AM on July 13, 2005

Seriously man, are you 3 years old?

two, actually. i registered my account in vitro.
posted by spiderwire at 11:07 AM on July 13, 2005

p.s. -- me, unoffensive? surely you jest!
posted by spiderwire at 11:11 AM on July 13, 2005

Spiderwire, I'm still angling on the Scotty's gay and Teh Gay is funny thing. Actually, the flameout above is more about a rumor my wife mentioned that he's on his way and is starting to give less and less of a damn.

My question for you is whether it caused more physical or pyschic pain to channel dios?

By the way, it might not be the only two but that's at least twice in the last week dios has asked if someone was three years old. Is there something special about 3 or is that your default insult age?
posted by fenriq at 11:45 AM on July 13, 2005

dang it, on his way OUT and is starting.....
posted by fenriq at 11:46 AM on July 13, 2005

My question for you is whether it caused more physical or pyschic pain to channel dios?

psychic. chanting "i am God with lime, I am Hoobity McBoobity" made me feel unnerved and kind of silly. i'm not sure i maintained it long enough. in retrospect, i could have used a few more exclamation points.

/goes to find a bigger barrel
posted by spiderwire at 12:00 PM on July 13, 2005

Well, I can see I have your maturity level about pegged with your whining, pettiness, and if you think anything in your last comment was insulting, embarrassing to me, or funny. And if you think pointing out nonsense I dumped on my user page is somehow clever or "shooting fish in a barrel" then... well, I would certainly be wasting my time to suggest to you to grow up.
posted by dios at 12:33 PM on July 13, 2005

Nice work, dios, you hit the trifecta and just got me a free lunch! Woohoo!
posted by fenriq at 12:55 PM on July 13, 2005

I would certainly be wasting my time to suggest to you to grow up.

indeed you would, hoobity.
posted by spiderwire at 1:24 PM on July 13, 2005

dios, WTF!!!

You actually had people who normally despise you saying good things about you lately, and then you have to go destroy it entirely.
posted by mystyk at 1:34 PM on July 13, 2005

I agree that this coverage (particularly the *gasp* investigative manner of the WH press corps) is worth catching, and also that the manner of the post put it over the line. But as for the repetition-versus-novelty argument, surely this admin is getting the best of that rule, like a crook who's sentenced for all of his crimes at once. Why don't we just put "White House misdeeds" in one big category and then any new references to it is just "rehashing"?
posted by dreamsign at 2:03 PM on July 13, 2005

I gave up a couple of weeks ago trying to figure out what was a good post and what was a crap post. I've seen crap comments in good FPPs and watched crap FPPs spawn interesting threads. The only thing that bothers me are the occasional random deletions that make me think I've lost my place, or my mind, or something. The gods are crazy and that's just what goes. For a while, I prayed to the gods to delete stuff I thought was wrong or crap or just bad. Now, I give up.
posted by warbaby at 3:28 PM on July 13, 2005